The World Migration Report 2015 Migrants and Cities: New Partnerships to Manage Mobility is being launched in the framework of the Conference on Migrants and Cities (CMC), as part of IOM's International Dialogue on Migration (IDM).

The World Migration Report 2015: Migrants and Cities, New Partnerships to Manage Mobility ─ the eighth report in IOM’s World Migration Report (WMR) series ─ focuses on how migration and migrants are shaping cities and how the life of migrants is shaped by cities, their people, organizations and rules. Over 54 per cent of people across the globe were living in urban areas in 2014. The number of people living in cities will almost double to some 6.4 billion by 2050, turning much of the world into a global city. Human mobility and migration play an important part in this but are largely missing from the global debate on urbanization. Many city and local governments also still do not include migration or migrants in their urban development planning and implementation. The report aims to address this gap by considering migration as a defining factor alongside climate change, population growth, demographic change and economic crisis in shaping sustainable cities of the future.

The World Migration Report 2015 contributes to the global debate on migration and urbanization in three ways:

The report takes migration enquiries to the city level and helps improve our understanding of the local political economies of migration, and highlights the close connection between migration and urban development. Much of the current discussion about migration trends and migration policy tends to focus on the national level.

The report draws attention to the livelihood of migrants in the cities of the Global South. The existing discussions on migrants and cities are inclined to concentrate primarily on the Global North and the integration of international migrants.

The report examines both internal and international migration. Cities across the development spectrum have increasingly mobile and diverse populations to manage.

While acknowledging the vast differences between international and internal migration scenarios, and between the capacities of various countries to deal with these, the report highlights the growing evidence of potential benefits of all forms of migration and mobility for city growth and development. It showcases innovative ways in which migration and urbanization policies can be better designed for the benefit of migrants and cities.

To read the English version of the World Migration Report 2015, please click here.
For the French version, please click here.

In recent days, French authorities confirmed that the number of people living in informal camps outside Calais, France, has doubled to 6,000 and that since June, a total of 16 migrants have been killed in or near the Channel Tunnel while trying to make the journey from France to the United Kingdom.

IOM photojournalist Amanda Nero was recently in Calais.

Just as the sun sets over the horizon, the migrants living in Calais’ ‘New Jungle’ begin their journey on foot towards the entrance of the Eurotunnel, with the specific aim of getting onto one of the trains or trucks heading to the UK.

Located seven kilometers from the port city of Calais, the informal migrant camps are a melting pot of nationalities which include Afghans, Pakistanis, Eritreans, Ethiopians and Sundanese, amongst many others. The migrants living in the camp want to cross to the UK for different reasons.

There are widespread rumors going round that as soon as they reach English soil they will have a place to stay and the government will take care of them. “When you arrive there, they put you in a 5 star hotel. It is true, my friend who lives there told me,” says Mohamed, a migrant from Sudan who graduated in finance.

Others believe that it will be easier to find a job because of the language. “There I can find a job because I can speak English, here I cannot,” another migrant explains.

Some want to go to England because they have family or friends there.

“My daughter and my wife are there,” says Amaur from Sudan.

This photo series shows a short part of their hopeful journey towards the UK.

Migration is one of the key realities of our time. It cuts across communities, influences priorities, and shapes societies.
To realise the benefits of migration for migrants and host communities alike, our responses must be innovative, collaborative and designed beyond the immediate.